Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4 - 7 2018 | Page 287

yelling at the air in front of her, making sure the punctures at the bottom of the screen caught enough air
to blow the caller away. “I told you not to do that! I can’t believe you did it!”
“I can’t believe you did it!” she whispered back at her reflection. Only she would say this after her
interview, in a remark of accomplishment. She smiled, noticing how her hair had frizzed since coming
out from her shower. “ Kutte ke tatte!” Everything else seemed presentable, but her unreliable hair had
failed her. Her roots felt dried of their usual thel , as if washed out of her. She was dry. Flaky. Heavy with
cleanliness. She needed to be straight, that was the right look.
Kya aap jaanate hain ki ve aapake baal pareekshan karane ke lie brash karate the? They really had, at least in
Africa, brushed each person’s hair to see if it was like white people hair. For the longest time she had
thought that that meant she had to make her hair white, so as a child she put dhai in her hair. How naïve
she was.
15 minutes before.
The blonde lady she had seen had already walked into the oak doors that was guarded by two stone-faced
receptionists. They hadn’t even spared her glance.
She sat in the waiting room of the carpeted 23 rd floor, watching the receptionist answer phone call after
phone call while simultaneously pitter-pattering on her computer. Beyond the large oak doors there were
no more of her, no more of the familiar chai colour that ran this way in that in grey pinned suits. There was
just one man, a white man, to be examining her, making sure she was ok. Revision: making sure that the
people of Germany would be ok.
She bit her nails, using her teeth to peel off the notches that hung loose, dry with drained moisture. She
watched as the skin underneath showed raw pink flesh, there was no chai anymore. The pink flesh was
sensitive to the touch and throbbed in a rhythm of humanness. It throbbed with the blood of the living.
She knew this for a fact because if she were the unliving she would feel no pain, but, she feels.
5 minutes before.
She glanced at the multi-coloured, glossy pamphlets adorning each side table around the room. Blonde,
blonde, brunette, blonde, black. White seemed to be their favourite colour. They all looked so happy, with
their perfectly non-patchy bleached teeth sparkling with euphoria. Children were there too. Ah . So it
wasn’t just the big ones. They were also white though.